Islamabad: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar met a delegation of students from Harvard University on Saturday and said that the interim government is focused on social order, development of human resources and emphasized on not compromising on rule of law in its short constitutional period.
A delegation of Harvard University comprising 38 students from 9 different nationalities, is currently on a visit to Pakistan. The delegation had also interacted with Chief of Army Staff Gen Asim Munir yesterday.
State of democracy, the economy, brain drain, Pakistan’s challenges in terrorism and number of topics came up for discussion in the meeting today. While taking about the future of democracy in Pakistan, PM Kakar said the “incomplete completion of tenure of any government is not at all undemocratic”.
“We are committed and understand that the performance and the participatory idea of democracy is what is needed but at the same time, you have to strike a balance, there’s a rule of law and then there’s a rule of order,” he said while talking to a delegation of students from Harvard University
“Democracy gives a guarantee to the strength of the Parliament and in Pakistan’s case, last 15 years post-2008, we had successive three stints of Parliament,” he said, stressing that “democracy is a process not an event”.
He added that the Parliament can change through constitutional means which has happened in the country.“You have to agree that members of the Parliament have the inherent right to emplace or replace a government. I have not seen any act in the past 15 years where the case has been otherwise,” he said.
While talking about social order and economy. He said that the interim government would focus more on rationalizing the expenditures, generations of revenue and development of human resource during its short constitutional period.
The Interim PM showed his determination to bring the undocumented economy, people in the tax net and how investing in the human resources would be broadly focused during the short period of the caretaker government.
Discussing the brain drain of young minds from Pakistan, PM Kakar said he was “trolled on Twitter (now X) for the last 48 hours on one of my comments which was incomplete, in which I tried to explain this phenomenon”.
He clarified that overseas Pakistanis are not a challenge but an opportunity. “So I hardly take it in negative terms when young people are going to the Western hemisphere, trying to grab opportunities there, trying to prove themselves… their individuality shines there,” he said.
He further said “They go there, they contribute to their societies, become breadwinners for their families and indirectly we benefit from their remittances”.
The prime minister said that Pakistan had been positively engaged with the US on different issues, adding there were also conversion and diversion between the both countries on various global issues.